Wednesday, April 15, 2015

San Diego

I spent three days / four nights in San Diego this week for work. What did I think about the place?

The weather: San Diego is a very popular location to hold a conference. I assume that's because of the weather: you're pretty much guaranteed it will be in the 70s and clear, virtually any time of year. (Although in June, it actually gets cloudy, which is a big deal to the locals.) Some would say San Diego has the nicest weather in the entire country. Personally, though...sure, it was very nice for when I was there, but I would get bored with it. I like changing weather, and it would drive me nuts if I lived in a place where the weather was the same every day, even as nice as it is here. But the local weatherman's job isn't quite as boring as I would have thought, for a couple of reasons. One, he/she has to issue several entirely different forecasts every day: one of for the coast, one for the mountains, one for the valleys, one for the deserts east of the mountains, etc. Also, fire danger is an important thing to stress in a place where it is persistently warm (ish) and dry.

Places to go: No shortage of things to do in this city. So, let's say you get out of your conference mid-afternoon and have a few hours on your hands. Where do you go? ... San Diego has a good train system (locally referred to as the "trolley") which can take you a lot of places, but my hotel actually had a rental car place on site. So, my co-worker and I rented a car for 24 hours and drove to Torrey Pines...

...and also went east on I-8 (or, as the locals famously refer to freeways, "the 8") into the mountains.

When we took the family to Colorado a couple years ago, we were almost overwhelmed by the recreational opportunities, many of which we couldn't do anyway because Marla wasn't the right age for any kind of "hike". Southern California isn't quite Colorado in terms of recreation, and you're much more limited in where you can go (ocean on one side, Mexico on another), but it's still a great place to be if you like spending time outdoors in the mountains. Plus, there are good places to take the whole family such as the world famous San Diego Zoo. This is definitely a place I'd like to (re)visit with the family.

Traffic isn't THAT bad: Southern California traffic is awful, right? In Los Angeles, most certainly. In San Diego, however...it really isn't any worse than any other city of its size. And it clears up quickly in the evening: by 7 pm Tuesday night, San Diego freeways were nearly 100% green on Google Maps. Maybe because San Diego is a Navy town, the local population's work hours skew early, and the roads clear up quickly in the evening? Either way, I'd say (based on a small sample space, of course) than San Diego's traffic is more tolerable than even Denver's traffic.

Seriously, why don't more people live here? The San Diego television market is only the 28th most populous in the United States, and only the 4th most populous in California. Why don't more people live here? Especially compared to the massive Los Angeles metro? I don't actually know. Does Los Angeles have a better job market? Is Los Angeles more affordable? Is it just the "Hollywood" appeal of Los Angeles? All I know is, I'd never consider living in or near Los Angeles, but I could be talked into moving to San Diego. (There are still too many logistical challenges to living in California for my taste: water shortages, wildfires, congestion, pollution, earthquakes, and so on. But people put up with it because the weather is nice and the scenery is beautiful, right?)

So, if you're in charge of planning some kind of academic or professional "conference" of some kind and aren't sure where to have it...have it in San Diego! Everyone else is.

Meanwhile, back home...the Triangle Curling Club is pseudo-open! I get to check it out on Friday.